A
partnership between San Francisco State University and City College of
San Francisco (CCSF) was awarded a prestigious U.S. Department of Education
grant to create a national model for community health education. The
$600,000 grant from the Fund for Improvement of Post Secondary Education
(FIPSE) will support curriculum development for the Metropolitan Health
Academy, a model program designed to encourage and assist ethnically
diverse students to pursue long-term careers in community health.

"We view this support as a show of confidence by the U.S. Department
of Education in SF State's and CCSF's 15 years of collaboration on
the community health front," said Mary Beth Love, professor and
chair of the Health Education Department in SF State's College of Health
and Human Services. "FIPSE funds only the top 3 percent of grant
applications and only those deemed to have the highest potential for
lasting national impact." Love is co-investigator on the project
with Vicki Legion, a CCSF faculty member.

Love said the academy's curriculum will focus on finding the most
effective ways to improve community health. Although the United States
spends twice as much on health care as any other industrialized country,
it is only 26th in the world in terms of infant mortality and 30th
in life expectancy. The latest research indicates that the most important
components to health are not one-on-one visits between patient and
health practitioner but community-level interventions. Academy students
will study and participate in public health campaigns such as anti-tobacco
initiatives and efforts to remove junk food from school campuses.

"The Metropolitan Health Academy will help foster a new generation
of students to be effective leaders and advocates for eliminating inequalities
in health," said Legion. She added that the academy will help
students "develop a sophisticated understanding of how to change
policies and build coalitions and programs."

Other important goals of the project are to amend academic policy
to allow community college students to transfer 100 percent of the
community college credits they earn to four-year universities and establish
more hands-on learning experiences in the community.

The project coincides with an upcoming PBS television
series, "Unnatural
Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick," intended to spark a national
conversation about the social determinants of health. SF State and
CCSF are part of a consortium that plans to initiate public discussion
and incorporate the series into the college classroom.

The SF State Department of Health Education and CCSF's Department
of Health Education and Community Health Studies partner on many community-based
projects intended to eliminate health inequities and to diversify the
public health and primary care workforce. One project, Community Health
Works, is a nationally recognized model for community-based centers
that focus on public health and primary care for low-income and immigrant
communities.